Читать книгу Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch - David Bottoms - Страница 15

Spooked

If they spooked my old man he didn’t show it,

only lifted me onto his shoulders and leaned against our back gate.

We stared across the woods,

the cornstalks rising out of our neighbor’s garden.

Nobody knew what they were — those colored balls of light circling

the radio tower — a red ball, I remember, vaporous,

almost translucent, and a green and a blue, floating clockwise

around the tower.

My aunt had phoned in the middle of the night

to urge us into the yard for a look.

This was the summer of UFO reports, but if they spooked my old man,

he didn’t show it.

At eight or nine I was already in a panic —

everything seemed a sign.

Oddly, though, no one ever mentioned that night again,

and how reliable, really, is the memory?

Now when I try to force my mind back, it runs straight

to the bulbs on a tree, those Christmas lights

glazing our dining-room windows.